Chapter Twenty, Part Two - I Could Hear the Siren Sound

"So what do you do here?" The kid with the raccoon ears, Jimmy, asked. He had a canvas set up against a tree beside him, and he was painting the way the river under the zen pagoda moved. Quickly, like the approaching end of a good book (Narrator: think Bel Canto), slowly, like watching the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, minutes becoming hours, until you look at your watch, and realize it's time to say "good morning, guys," to your friends in the theater seats next to you.

"That's one bridge I plan on crossing when I get to it," AWC replied. She didn't really have any painting skills herself, so she was braiding the long yellow hair of her new muse, Sunny. Sunny wasn't as hyper as Sally, which made AWC sad, but she seemed relatively happy.

Jimmy paused at the comment. It was an answer he did not expect. He shrugged and dipped his paintbrush back into the water.

"So, best soundtrack ever?" AWC wondered if she could lug her typewriter outside. She decided she couldn't and began making leaf jewelery instead.

Jimmy paused and tried to decide. "This makes my head hurt."

"Ow, yeah, you're right," AWC said.

"I brought muffins!" The Wallaby was hopping up the dirt trail. "Who wants muffins? I have chocolate chip muffins, and blueberry muffins, and other types of delicious muffinosity I baked myself, in the hot roasty climates of my homeland!" He grinned merrily. "Australia!"

AWC stared at the muffins. She, like all the other forest critters, knew that the greatest baker of muffins there ever was, ever in the history of forever, etcetera, etcetera, was the wallaby. "Muffins..... wait," her eyebrows raised. "Are you trying to bribe me into finishing the book you lent me so I can return it?"

"Um..." The wallaby looked at the ground. "Well..."

"I'm sorry, it's just that I started Bel Canto, and it really is one of those attention grabbers," AWC clutched a fistful of empty air. "See? Grabs the attention. Like this."

The wallaby pouted. "But I'm tired of reading horrible fanfiction on the internet..."

"Ooh! Ooh! Harry and Hermione forever!" AWC exclaimed.

"You sick, twisted infidel..." Jimmy shook his head.

"They had chemistry. Do you know how I know?" AWC folded her arms.

"Uh... no. Why." Jimmy asked.

"Because I know I'm like Hermione and I'd never go out with Ron! It just wouldn't happen!"

"But you'd go out with Harry?" The wallaby asked skeptically. "Isn't he like, the definition of angsty?"

"No, he's mangsty," AWC said. "That's like, four times more manly than angsty."

"More like three, at best," Jimmy argued.

"Oh it's definitely four," AWC laughed, "at the very least."

"We could always ask that guy from Mulan..." the wallaby mused. "I think he lives on the suzumebachi's lawn."

"No need, I'm leaving anyway." The awc stood up and grabbed Dorian, who had been trying to catch a fish by casting his zipper out into the river, without success. He hadn't been clever when he was a vampire, and he wasn't clever now. "I have to go be hopelessly lost. I told Paolo I'd stop by his foresty habitat, and I forget where it is."

"Oh," Jimmy said. "I think you take a left at the first break in the trees... and then..."

"Er, I'll be fine," AWC interrupted. "But I've really got to go."

"Me too," Jimmy said, standing up as well. "I've got to get back to my own forest."

"Your own forest?" AWC was puzzled. "For... how long? Why?"

"A little while at least. It's my forest. You know?" Jimmy looked around. "The worst that ever happens to your mindfriends here is Narcissa may split them into an evil side, or a silver dog may spontaneously attack. In my forest, most of the creatures are high."

"High?" The wallaby asked. "I don't understand..."

"Yeah, what do you mean?" AWC asked.

"Er... it's not going to make sense to you. But I've got to go home. I'll visit again, though."

And with that, he stepped into the river, where Narcissa had placed the portal. As he disappeared, various random items came flying out of the river, much to the startlement of AWC and the wallaby. They yelled and ran around in frightened circles while the cyclone of items flew around them.

"Augh!" The wallaby yelled as a knife flew toward his face.

"Got it!" AWC grabbed it out of the air. "Oooh, shiny."

It was, indeed, a shiny knife, with a scorpion pattern on the side. "This is oddly reminiscent of Princess Mononoke, do you not think so?"

"I think..." the wallaby choked as the storm died down and the woods grew quiet again. "this forest is absolutely insane."

Suddenly, without warning, the entire forest became pitch black. The sounds of frightened woodland creatures muttering to one another grew louder and more frantic, squirrels scolding, 'you should have paid the electric bill, you should have paid the electric bill...' owls questioning 'who, who, who could have done this?' drunken raccoons falling over one another in fits of giggles wondering 'where have all the stars gone?'

A voice, superhuman in its intensity and spookiosity spoke above the forest din. "DARKNESS FALLS ACROSS THE LAND. THE MIDNIGHT HOUR IS CLOSE AT HAND. CREATURES CRAWL IN SEARCH OF BLOOD, TO TERRORIZE Y'ALL'S NEIGHBORHOOD..."

A glowy white fantome strongly resembling a young african american male with the head of an angry lion, and huge hairy paws with claws like daggers rose up out of the darkness. AWC stood trembling as she watched the white head turn slowly her direction, it's bulging yellow eyes shining in the light of the newly appeared full moon.

"AND WHOSOEVER SHALL BE FOUND, WITHOUT THE SOUL FOR GETTING DOWN, MUST STAND AND FACE THE HOUNDS OF HELL, AND ROT INSIDE A CORPSE'S SHELL..."

"AWC!" the wallaby hissed. "AWC! It's the ghost... the spirit of... the THRILLER!"

"Run! Runnn!" AWC pushed the wallaby into action as she herself also began to sprint away from the creature. "Darn it! I can't believe that something crazy and evil attacks the minute that Narcissa and her Shadow are in Euroland, Shadow's gone to wolfy boot camp, and Jimmy left me with nothing but this really sharp and probably dangerous weapon!" She looked down at the knife. "Wait..."

The wallaby hopping against her protested. "Violence won't fix this!"

"But what do we do? It's swooping closer!" AWC exclaimed. Truly, the beast was close behind them.

"We have to dance, AWC! It's the only way!"

"I can't learn the thriller!!!" AWC said, "Especially under such stress!"

"It's easy," Moe the Giraffe said, appearing out of the shoulders. "First, you put your right arm up and out, then put your right leg out. Remember to keep your limbs all limp and spooky looking!"

The wallaby followed his directions. "Next," Moe said, "Bring them back in, and move out your left arm and leg this time!"

~ ~ ~

Jack the thief was strolling through the darkend woodlands. He was always so used to operations of stealth taking place in darkness, that the forest blackout didn't bother him one bit. His friend, on the other hand, a large strip of bacon with a face, arms, and legs, was very frightened by the darkness. Most animals are sort of fond of bacon... it's kind of delicious.

"I heard it something over here," Jack said, fairly sure of himself.

"Are you sure of yourself?" The piece of bacon asked.

"Why yes."

"Okay." The bacon wasn't really a complainer, so he just went with it.

Soon, the two creatures could see a hazy light coming from a clearing in the forest. They heard the rhythm of the music, and were mildly alarmed by its intensity. "What is this?" Jack asked, as he pushed through the trees, the piece of bacon tagging along.

The sight that met them was a disturbing one. All of the creatures in the Heavenly forest were alligned in some sort of psychotic dance formation, twisting and shaking to the rhythm of what only can be described as the spirit of the thriller. Meanwhile, the actual spirit of the thriller, a phantom in a tight black leather ensemble, was hovering above them, watching curiously as they tried to replicate epic dancedom.

Jack proceded to freak out, running around in circles, while the bacon found a place in the bushes to hide. "Who's going to save us?" Jack asked, very upset. "The ghost of Michael Jackson is forcing all my good friends to abandon reason and sense and just dance!"

"Gonna be ok..." the bacon sang.

"Da da doo doo," Jack chorused.

"Wait," the bacon said, "I'm pretty sure someone's missing."

"You're right," Jack said, "the suzumebachi. Usually she's not all that far away from AWC. But I don't see her or her animated rabbit doll anywhere!"

Suddenly, the spotlights that had been swinging around the clearing fixed upon a target on the top of one of the taller trees. Some shape crouched there, fangs bared, eyes red with fury. It had two big arms on either side of its body, and one huge muscular arm coming out of its back. "IT IS I," the creature said, "TRI-ARM THE DESTROYER. AND I WILL DESTROY THIS MOCKERY OF A BEAT!"

With that, the thing leapt from the tree and onto the back of Michael Jackson's ghost. They fell to the ground and wrestled for a while. Tri-arm was pretty good at wrestling, due to the extra limb. Everytime Tri-arm got knocked onto the back, they used their arm to push them back up again. Michael Jackson's claws and fangs were no matched for Tri-arm's, and soon, the ghost was immortally wounded. "Billie Jean," the ghost choked with its last breath, "is not... my lover..." and with that, he disappeared.

"HAIL TRI-ARM!" Tri-arm yelled, raising fists into the air victoriously. "RAAAAAH"

The ground beneath him parted, and he leapt into the chasm, which soon closed up again.

All the creatures sat down immediately; they were tired of dancing. AWC glared at the wallaby. "I thought you said that violence couldn't fix this!"

The wallaby laughed nervously. "Yeah, well, I was just trying to be an advocate for peace. It's not my fault!" He was met by the disapproving glances of many a creature. "Rachel challenged me! I had no choice but to accept!"

"The... nevermore... moral of the story is?" Raven the raven asked, stretching out his tired talons.

"Why the heck didn't I just stab the guy?" AWC said, staring at Jimmy's knife, which she still had clutched in her palm.

Chapter Twenty ~ Now my feet won't touch the ground

AWC's brow furrowed with intense concentrationalism. She had made the decision that morning, at 12:03 AM, to get off of her lazy rear and actually write something.



Narrator: Wait... has it stricken anyone as odd that the Anonymous.Writer.Character hasn't actually written anything within these past nineteen chapters?

Producer: Argh! Stop asking questions! The plot-holes are veiled thinly enough as it is!

Narrator: I was just trying to be inquisitive. That's supposedly the key to happiness. Staying inquisitive.

"There... was a boy..." AWC started to sing, as she typed. "A very strange enchanted boy... they say he wandered very faaaar..."

"AWC!" The suzumebachi buzzed into the zen pagoda through the front door. "Stop singing! It's interfering with my buzzing!"

"I'm sorry," AWC said. "It's just, sitting at a typewriter... I was overcome with song!"

"That's the worst excuse I've ever heard," the suzumebachi said. "And I told you not to watch Moulin Rouge. That movie makes you sob for hours and hours, and forest floods are extremely unpleasant to those of us who can't fly!" She looked across the room where Lemony was sleeping on the couch cushion, with Florence perched watchfully on the armrest. "Like your rabbit."

"I think all movies make me cry." AWC hummed and considered. "Wait... there has to be some movie that doesn't make me cry. Oh yeah. Star Wars."

"No, you cried during Star Wars!"

"Tears of boredom don't count," AWC replied.

There was a knock on the door. Florence leapt into the air in a flurry of feathers, and flew straight at the door. "I'll get it! I'll get it!"

Lemony woke with a start, then dashed at the door as well. "No I'll get it!"

Florence and Lemony stopped at the threshold. They remembered then that the zen pagoda didn't actually have a door, just a spacious opening in an elegantly carved doorframe. Doors themselves aren't very zen. Doorways, on the other hand...

"It's the dragon lady!" The critters exclaimed simultaneously.

Neck curled down awkwardly so that she could see into the little zen pagoda, the dragon lady called out. "AWC, are you there, AWC?"

AWC got up from her typewriter and slowly, determinedly approached the zen doorway. "What are you doing here, Loretta?"

"I just came to tell you we're throwing a party of intense awesomeosity to celebrate our daring escape from the mines!" The dragon lady grinned. "It's going to be a wonderful party, the entire forest is invited. There will be food, there will be beverage, there will be musical chairs and Mr. Blue heron's going to cheat, just like he always does!"


"Oh wonderful!" AWC exclaimed, "I love being shoved off of chairs by egotistical avians!"


"I know," the dragon lady agreed, "It'll be just like old times."


"Let's go on a walk and compose the guest list," AWC said.


The dragon lady and the rabbit girl headed out into the deep dark forest. One by one, they encountered all of their heavenly forest friends, who agreed to attend the festivities, including the highly respected, greatly beloved pirate queen. Unfortunately, Shadow the angry wolf had to pupsit on that day, the tome of superiority was in hiding, Forget-me-not was in Alligator City, and Jack the thief was busy with a mission stealing some sort of gem from some mysterious cavern in some location in the middle of elsewhere.

"I think that's everyone," AWC said, checking off the box next to Moe's name. The two were on the sandy path that lead to the zen pagoda, their mission nearly completed. "Wait, stop!"

The dragon lady looked around the path. "Why? What?"

AWC beckoned Loretta to follow, and went off the path across the grass, to a little sandy place by the ever flowing zen river. "We must pay our respects," AWC said, kneeling in the grass.

"To... oh..." Loretta realized. There was a marble slab on a tiny grave, with the name Sally scribbled across in pink sharpie.

"WHY, Sally, WHY?" AWC said, sobbing, rolling over off her knees and lying flat facedown in the grass. "You were so young, so beautiful. Oh, Sally... you were the best muse I've ever had. I first listened to Interpol on you, and together we discovered the wonders of Coheed and Cambria..."

"Coheed and Cambria?" Loretta made a face. "Seriously?"

"Is there no world for tomorrow, if we wait for today?" AWC sang softly.

"There is... something wrong with you." Loretta shook her dragony head disappointedly.

"Excuse me, crying lady and scary dragon?" a small raccoon peered out from behind the tombstone.

"YOU!" AWC growled. "This grave belongs to Sally! My beautiful muse!"

"I'm sorry," the raccoon looked very scared. It could have been because of AWC's harsh tone, or it could have been because there was a large dragon with fangs and claws peering curiously down at it. Whatever reason, the raccoon began trembling. "It's just... I'm lost!"

"Awww, poor little raccoon..." the dragon cooed maternally. "What's your name, small one?"

"Nancy," the raccoon sniffed. "I lost my kid!"

"Come on, Loretta, it's obviously lying. Do you seriously believe there's a random raccoon kid running around this vast forest that we don't know about?" AWC folded her arms. She felt a little foolish for scolding the poor raccoon, and so she was pouting.

"This isn't my forest... my forest is darker, and all the animals are different, and there's not a giraffe, and the cabin we live in is there!" the raccoon said. "I'm not lying, honest. It's a little peaceful cabin, in the middle of the Painter's Forest!"

"A small home in the middle of a big forest." AWC frowned. "Sounds really, really familiar. Should we trust it?"

"I don't know," Loretta said. "How did you get here?"

"I chased a white stag..." the raccoon shrugged. "It was pretty... I thought Jimmy could paint it!"

"Who's Jimmy?" AWC asked.

"My kid!" The raccoon was getting more and more anxious.

"What's up?" Narcissa appeared spontaneously between Loretta and AWC. "I could sense the gathering of like minds and I just had to stop by. How are my darling friends?" She was grinning slyly, so Loretta and AWC were reluctant to discuss current events with her, uncertain if this was Narcissa or Narcissa's shadow. "Oh my glider!" Narcissa gasped. "Nancy, what are you doing here?"

"Narccy!" the raccoon jumbed up into Narcissa's arms. "I'm so glad you're here! I'm lost, and there's this dragon, and this girl who looks like kind of like Jimmy only she's alot, alot, alot, alot alot more grumpy..."

"I'm not grumpy..." AWC said. She leaned in to whisper to Loretta. "Loretta, am I grumpy?"

"You were grieving. It's ok. I forgive you," Loretta replied.

"So how do you know... Nancy, was it?" AWC asked.

"Oh, I go between forests. Because I know absolutely everyone." She smiled slyly again. "I've got everybody typed... and then I typed up their types. I can get inside pretty much anyone's head."

"Can you take Nancy home?" AWC asked.

"Not really," Narcissa said. "I think Jimmy has to come get her."

"How will he know what world she's in?" Loretta asked.

"Easy. He's like us. He should be able to sense our gathering just like I could. Then, I'm sure I can open up a portal he can come through. You guys take Nancy to the zen pagoda, while I try that. Poor creature could use some peace."

"I don't know..." AWC said. "Narcissa, the only creature besides my mindpets who ever go in there is Suzumebachi, and she's my sister... I don't even know..."

The raccoon looked up at her with big, sparkly masked eyes.

"Uh..." AWC groaned. "Okay, come on." She held out her arms for creature.

Nancy looked cautiously up at Narcissa, who nodded reassuringly, and the raccoon leapt into AWC's arms. "Alack!" AWC exclaimed. "Heavy! Oof!"

"Hurry back once you drop her off," Narcissa said, "We need to all be here together to get Jimmy to appear."

"She's right," Loretta chuckled. "We need to harness the power of three. I call being Piper."

"Ooh! I'm Pru. She's powerful," Narcissa smiled.

"Ack that makes me Phoebe... AWC groaned again. "Dude..."

"Haha, your powers SUCK!" The dragon lady stuck out her tongue.

"Maybe I won't come back!" AWC exclaimed. Nancy tensed in AWC's arms. "No, no, it's ok, I was just kidding." AWC sighed. "Come on. Oh, and you'd better be nice to Lemony."

To Be Continued...